Tennis player Kodeš receives Czech fair play award

Prague, March 19 (CTK) - Former legendary tennis player Jan Kodes, 67, Wimbledon winner from 1973 and a member of the winning Czechoslovak Davis Cup team from 1980, received the main award of the Czech Fair Play Club for his lifelong behaviour Tuesday.

Another 2012 fair play main awards went to mountaineers Antonin Belik and Vit Auermueller for having saved a life.

During his sport career, Kodes was well known not only as an excellent tennis player but also as "a gentleman" of tennis courts.

The Fair Play Club appreciated, for example, Kodes's effort to help tennis player Ivan Lendl in the 1980s when he faced problems with the communist regime.

Belik and Auermueller noticed a fall of a Taiwanese mountaineer from 200 metres during their ascent of Broad Peak. They interrupted it, though they were preparing for the expedition for months, and started rescuing the man immediately.

Other fair-play prizes were bestowed on hockey goalie Martin Ruzicka, from Pardubice, east Bohemia, handball-player Martina Weisenbilderova, from Most, north Bohemia, footballer Pavel Horvath, captain of Plzen team, west Bohemia, and his former team-mate Milan Petrzela for having behaved in the fair-play spirit during sport matches.

A joint charity project of the public Czech Television and the Czech Basketball Federation raising funds for people in a difficult situation received a special award.